Playground now takes on subscribers again!

We’re open for business, baby.
Or more correctly – we’re once again ready to take your money and in return bring you magazines about the New Wave in roleplaying.

The Playground is now open again.
http://playgroundroleplayingmagazine.wordpress.com/subscriptions/ -> the subscription page
http://rollespilsakademiet.dk/webshop/playground/ -> direct link to the payment page

And for those of you wondering whether Matthijs’ “It lives again” post was just a forlorn hope… it wasn’t.

From here on, there’s only one road, and it leads ahead.

- Claus Raasted
Playground Distribution Dwarf

British 80′s fantasy on prime time!

The first U.K larp was probably Treasure Trap and in this video the two presenters from the BBC Children’s TV show Blue Peter, Simon Groom and Peter Duncan visits the game.

For some more early larp video from the UK check out the videos: Part 1, part 2 & part 3 from South of Watford (1984).

Thanks to Lizzie Stark and Nathan Hook for the tip.

It Lives Again!

For a while there, we were sure it was dead. Like that scene in E. T. where the machine that goes “beep” no longer goes “beep”, and you cry because E. T. is gone and it’s all horribly sad. And then all of a sudden he moves, and is all like “phone home” and the audience is like “yay” and you go out and party and get drunk and have an orgy and the aliens finally land on earth FOR REAL and things are AMAZING!

It’s like that with Playground right now. The Danes have arrived to make it all better again.

Solmukohta 2012 wants your brilliance!

This years Knutepunkt/Knudepunkt/Knutpunkt/Solmukohta-conference will be in Finland and is therefore known as Solmukohta 2012!

The dates are April 12-15 and registration is said to open in January. As always the conference is packed with people telling you (hopefully) interesting stuff about roleplaying or engaging you in an awesome workshop or game.

However, to be able to put together a program Solmukohta needs you and your fresh or just great ideas. This year the theme is design which you may or may not fit your item into.

In support of Helsinki’s status of World Design Capital 2012 the theme for Solmukohta 2012 is design. What does design mean in live action and other forms of roleplaying? What is game design and how does it overlap with – and relate to – other forms of design? Why do we design and who do we design for? We want to explore the core of game design and talk about its different forms, trends, possibilities and future. Should design always aim for something extraordinary and exquisite, or is it possible to dress up in our old elf ears and let the wind blow through our dusty capes in a design fantasy setting? What qualifies as design?
Solmukohta 2012 – Call for program

Deadline for program-items is February 28th.

For some Knude-inspiration you can also watch the video from Knudepunkt 2011.

Web: Solmukohta

Understockholm

Swedish Understockholm is a larp campaign inspired by Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.

- We aim to tell a dark and urban fairy tale about the part of Stockholm that lives in the shadows, the tunnels, the forgotten alleys and beneath, above, around our everyday Stockholm, says organizer Sofia Stenler.



It’s possible to play groups from other cities, eg the Danish East Indian Company, as well as English speaking groups from Understockholm.

Web: Understockholm (In Swedish, English with Google Translate).
Photo: Niclas Lundborg

Article by Ole Peder Giæver

Larp-informed art movie


French artist Pierre Huyghe his film The Host and the Cloud at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York this spring. The artist has been unavailable for comment, but the gallery confirms that “he definitely used these methods for directing the actors in The Host and the Cloud, LARP (Live action role playing) but also ARG (Alternate Reality Game)”.

Web: Pirre Huyghe mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/2011-01-28_pierre-huyghe/
Photo: Marian Goodman Gallery, Still image from “The Host and the Cloud” video installation

Article by Ole Peder Giæver

What is larp? Explained by Court of Moravia

The Czech larp association Court of Moravia has put together a really nice short movie to explain what larp is. Actually it is one of the better explanations I have seen.

Press the CC-button for english subtitles. Unless of course you speak Czech.

We are Court of Moravia and we have been dedicated to larp for quite some time (seven years, to be exact). We do everything from game design and screenwriting to implementation and marketing. And judging by satisfied participants, we do that fair and right.

Our portfolio includes more than two dozens of larps, we host international festival Larpweekend every year, we have co-founded larp conference Odraz and also done a whole bunch of other things that we won’t bother you with. What really matters is what we are going to do tomorrow, not memories of what we did yesterday.
Court of Moravia

If you are looking for a good explanation of larp in text, check out What Is Larp by Lizzie Stark.

Article by Petter Karlsson